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Soccer powerhouses will play at Big House this summer, UM confirms

University of Michigan Athletics Director David Brandon makes it official Friday: Michigan Stadium will be the site of the International Champions Cup match-up between Real Madrid and Manchester United in August.

Global soccer powerhouses Real Madrid and Manchester United — the latter wearing its new Chevrolet-sponsored jerseys — will square off at Michigan Stadium at 4 p.m. Aug. 2, it was announced at the University of Michigan today.

The globally-televised match is part of the eight-team, 12-city International Champions Cup round-robin exhibition tournament that culminates in a title game Aug. 4 at Sun Life Stadium in Miami.

Financial terms of the deal haven’t been released.

The tournament is a product of Relevant Sports, a division of New York City-based RSE Ventures investment firm that was co-founded in 2012 by noted Michigan alum Stephen Ross, the billionaire real estate investor and owner of the Miami Dolphins (and Sun Life Stadium) who has donated $313 million to the university over the years.

A final contract between Relevant Sports and Michigan hasn’t been signed, Michigan Athletics Director David Brandon told Crain’s this week. The lease will be presented to the university’s regents for a vote after the state approves a one-day liquor license for the event, Brandon said today.

He said the lease fee will be less than the $3 million the NHL paid to use the Big House for the Winter Classic. The fee will be more than $1 million.

The athletic department will spend some of the lease money on a new soccer facility for its own teams, and will donate some to the university’s general scholarship fund, Brandon said.

Michigan will sell tickets to donors, students, staff and other university-related people, while Relevant Sports will handle the majority of general-admission ticket sales.

The athletic department isn’t keeping any money from ticket sales or concessions, Brandon said. Instead, it’s getting the lump sum lease fee from Relevant Sports, which assumes the business risk and keeps any revenue.

Brandon estimated the game would generate more than the $14 million in local economic impact that a sold-out Michigan football game provides.

A natural grass field will be installed atop Michigan Stadium’s artificial turf. It will be slightly narrower than a regulation soccer pitch, Brandon said. Installation will take about a week.

“Soccer at that level needs to be played on natural grass,” he said.

The grass, which will be put down in 6-by-60 foot strips, will be given to the athletic department after the tournament, Relevant Sports CEO Charlie Stillitano said today.

The width of the grass field will be such that the teams and staff will sit in the first few rows of the stands rather than on the field sidelines, Brandon said.

The game was briefly advertised on the tournament’s website in February, garnering some local media attention, but the information was quickly taken down. Speculation arose earlier this week that an announcement would be made today.

General Motors Co., which agreed in 2012 to a seven-year, $559 million jersey sponsorship deal with Manchester United, was unveiled today co-sponsor of the tournament.

The automaker approached Michigan last year about hosting a match at the Big House, Brandon said.

A message seeking comment was left for GM media relations.

All of the other venues were announced months ago. Brandon said the delay in getting a deal worked out at Michigan was because of the various internal approvals required, and working out logistical details.

“This arrangement has been percolating for many months. It became a pretty complex matter to put this together in a manner acceptable to all parties,” he said. “We’re far enough along in our agreement to terms to make an announcement.”

Other teams in the tournament include Liverpool and Manchester City of Great Britain’s Premier League; ACMilan, Roma and Inter Milan from Serie A in Italy; and Olympiacos from Superleague Greece.

In last year’s International Champions Cup title game, Real Madrid beat Chelsea 3-1 on Aug. 7 in front of 67,273 fans at Sun Life Stadium.

The only U.S.-based team last year, the Los Angeles Galaxy of Major League Soccer, finished fourth.

Last year’s matches averaged 41,048 fans.

The worst attendance in the U.S. was 22,208 for Everton’s 6-5 shootout victory over Juventus at San Francisco’s AT&T Park on July 31.

Overseas, Milan’s 2-1 victory over Valencia on July 27 drew 17,000 at Mestalla Stadium in Spain. That was the lone non-U.S. match in last year’s tournament. It will be played entirely in the United States in 2014.

The tournament replaces a similar series of preseason exhibition games, played in the U.S. from 2009-11, known as the World Football Challenge.

The general public can buy tickets, which start at $45, beginning at 8:30 a.m. Thursday via MGoBlue.com/tickets.

Tourney origins

Ross and Matt Higgins, formerly executive vice president of business operations for the New York Jets, in 2012 agreed to co-found a marketing firm aimed at sports, entertainment and technology.

It’s called RSE Ventures, and the Relevant Sports division organizes the soccer tournament. They see soccer as a money maker in the United States.

Ross disclosed last fall that he’s seeking a new Major League Soccer team for the South Florida market.

His Sun Life Stadium has hosted several soccer matches that have attracted huge crowds, including Brazil beating Honduras 5-0 in front of 71,124 in November.

Relevant Sports contracts the teams to play in the International Champions Cup, Higgins said. He declined to disclose how much the teams are paid.

In turn, Relevant Sports makes money by selling the domestic and international television broadcast rights, along with corporate sponsorships and tickets.

The Fox network has a deal to television the games domestically, and Hong Kong-based Catalyst Media Group, owned by RSE Ventures, is selling the rights overseas, Higgins said.

Irish beer giant Guinness is the title sponsor and Chevy is the official car of the tournament. Financial details of those deals haven’t been made public.

Higgins called General Motors’ involvement in the tournament “instrumental” to making it happen.

“They’ve been a big driver of it. Manchester United is a big partnership, so this is a great showcase,” he said.

Higgins said the July-August time frame is the only window available to have European teams play in the U.S. before their regular seasons begin.

To get genuine competition-quality play, the decision was made to create an internationally-broadcast tournament that could also act as a training warm-up to their league seasons.

“What we’re bringing is compelling. We can make these matches actually stand for something,” Higgins said. “If the matches are more meaningful, players play harder. The business side gets to put their brand in front of U.S. consumers in a meaningful way.”

The tournament will include 38 of the top 100 players in the world.

“Steve believes in doing everything best in class,” Higgins said.

The tournament comes on the heels of the World Cup, which ends July 13 in Brazil.

A Michigan man

Ross earned an accounting degree from Michigan in 1962 (after transferring from the University of Florida), followed by a law degree from Wayne State University in 1965 and a masters of laws degree the following year from New York University.

He is chairman and majority owner of global real estate development firm The Related Cos. LP, which he founded in New York City in 1972.

Forbes estimates Ross’ worth at $4.4 billion.

He’s a Detroit native who grew up in Miami Beach and lives today in New York City. His uncle was the late Max Fisher, the noted Detroit philanthropist and industrialist.

Ross began his career as a tax attorney with the Detroit office of Coopers & Lybrand, which later became PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The athletics department and business school are splitting $200 million he pledged to the University of Michigan in September. His name also is on the 6,000-student Stephen M. Ross School of Business.

The teams

The teams playing at Michigan Stadium in August are the giants of the sport.

Real Madrid, which plays home matches at 85,500-seat Estadio Santiago Bernabeu, is the most-valuable soccer team in the world, worth $3.3 billion, according to Forbes.com.

The financial news site said the club had $170 million in operating income on revenue of $650 million in 2012, the most recent numbers available.

Ownership of the team is divided among more than 60,000 supporters who buy memberships, and they elect a team president (who is forbidden to invest his own money in the club).

Real Madrid has won 32 titles in its league, Spain’s La Liga. The team’s superstar is Cristiano Ronaldo, who in September signed a five-year, $206 million contract extension that runs through 2020.

Adidas pays the team about $40 million annually to sponsor its jersey through 2020.

Manchester United plc, which has won 13 English Premier League championships since its 1992 launch, is second on Forbes’ most valuable list at $3.165 billion.

It plays at 76,000-seat Old Trafford, and saw $102.8 million in operating profit on $602.2 million in revenue, according to the team’s year-end financial report in June 2013. It trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticket symbol MANU.

American billionaire Malcolm Glazer, who also owns the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, bought the controlling stake in Manchester United for $1.5 billion in 2005.

Manchester United’s primary jersey logo sponsor beginning this summer is Chevrolet, replacing Nike. The automaker will pay $70 million to have the Chevy logo on the team’s kit, as soccer uniforms are called overseas.

GM — which sells the Opel and Vauxhall brands in Europe, but not Chevy — has drawn criticism for the sponsorship.

Man U has struggled on the pitch this season and may not qualify for even the second-tier Europa League tournament. It usually plays in the far more visible European Champions League tournament — reducing exposure for Chevy in Europe and Asia.

A report Friday out of Britain’s The Telegraph newspaper said the team’s management may seek to play matches in the Middle East and India to make up for the financial shortfall of missing out on the other tournaments.

Manchester’s top player is Wayne Rooney, who has recorded 208 goals in 430 games. He inked a four-year contract extension in February that will pay him $26 million a year through 2019.